Once Upon a Time
by Iyeshana
Summary: Once upon a time, in a land perhaps quite familiar to you, lived the son of a great King. There was also borne a girl of a vain nature, being so breathtakingly beautiful that she was given everything she wanted. Rosalie's life as a tragic fairy tale.


A/N: This is essentially Rosalie's story, written in the form of an early fairy tale. I don't think this'll be the end of it. While it may be a little strange, it is actually completely canon. There's a lot of symbolism used, but if you look beyond it you can see Rosalie's real story.

Once Upon a Time

Part One: The Dark Heart & An Eternal Curse

"_There was once a country man who had money and land in plenty, but however rich he was, his happiness was still lacking in one respect – he had no children." -The Brothers Grimm, Hans My Hedgehog_

Once upon a time, in a land perhaps quite familiar to you, lived the son of a great King. The son of the sons of many Kings before him, ready to carry on the prestigious line of bankers for his children, and his children's children. But this King was a wolf in sheep's clothing, kind and gentle on the surface with a dark heart underneath. No one could see this heart, for he was not a man made of glass, he was a man made of flesh and bone, just like any other.

The same year that the King's son was born, another maiden birthed a baby girl in the springtime. Her daughter reminded her of flowers, her eyes being like violets and her lips being as red as roses. She called her daughter Rosalie, hoping her daughter would grow to be as lovely as her namesake.

The daughter was of a vain nature, being so breathtakingly beautiful that she was given everything she wanted. With just one flip of her golden curls she had the prettiest dress bought for her, the most lovely of social events to attend to, and the most handsome of courtiers in the entire land. She waited for her glowing future, knowing that when the time came she would accept it with open arms.

When Rosalie had grown older her parents wished for her to be married. They sent her to visit the King's son in the bank knowing that if all went well, they would be wed. Her mother fixed her hair and bought her a new dress for the occasion, checking to make sure her slippers matched before sending her out the door.

The King's son was floored by Rosalie's beauty, absolutely entranced by it. He bought her flowers each and every day, roses like her namesake and violets like her eyes, until they filled every room of her family's house. Everyone was thrilled by the possibility of this new romance, of the prospect it could bring them.

The King's son gave her a magical mirror that would reassure Rosalie day in and day out of her beauty, how she was the fairest one in the land. It was a mirror meant to blind her with love of her own appearance, until she saw nothing but herself. It was too easy for her to accept that she was radiant, her only jealousy being that her other friends had already married and had the children she wanted. But she didn't remain jealous long, because the King's son did not allow it to be so.

Rosalie was easily fooled by his kind words and simple praise. He guided her with material possesions and coddled her with the sugar in his poetry. She had fallen madly in love with him, though his dark heart was still pumping madly in his chest.

Then one night as Rosalie came home from a ball, she witnessed the heart taking over the King's son. He had dranken a sweet kind of liquor one that changed his disposition completely. And in the second he chose to give into the liquor's temptation, the dark heart rained supreme over his entire body, ruling his actions. He was no longer a person – he was being controlled by the powers of his reckless choice.

Rosalie tried to stop him, but no matter what she did the liquor inside of the King's son enticed him to harm her. Her beauty, the one thing which had meant so much to her, made her something to be desired by him. She felt the price of being beautiful as hollow screams left her throat. She was screaming for her love to save her – to spare her this madness – but only the dark heart would answer with empty, drunken laughter.

Before the night was even over she felt her body lighten as an phantom carried her away from the earth. She slowly escaped the emptiness of lost love as a different type of pain took its place. A burning, ragged rage filled her, threatening to swallow her entire soul. As other ghosts judged her for everything she had ever done, voices whispered that her shallow, vain desires were the blackest sort of sin. She was cursed forever.

Yet this curse was only seen as a curse to her, and not to the other ghosts who had also been doomed to wander. Her curse was an eternal beauty – the kind most would choose to die for. She had already died for being beautiful to a man, and she did not wish to suffer this any longer. This was to be her sentence to a crime she wasn't aware of committing, for the sin of believing herself above the rest.

In the night as she wandered she saw the faded eyes of the King's son as he paced through his vast bedroom. His eyes had two layers: one layer of guilt hidden beneath the eyes of satisfaction. But he could see her clenched hands, pale against the lapels of his coat, he could feel her own sick satisfaction as her lips curled into a smile. He could feel his own fear, and she could enjoy it while he did.

She was faced with a grueling task: to kill the King's son without spilling a drop of his blood. The blood would spring the rage inside of her again, and that would be damage she could never reverse. It would be hard to kill him without blood, as she wanted to rip his heart from his chest.

She snapped his neck, then peered at his lifeless body, looking for a flicker of light behind his eyes before realizing that nothing was there. Her love no longer existed as his heart had controlled him. And once his heart stopped beating, there was nothing left of him at all.

Rosalie was still faced with her curse, wondering why being brought back from death was not enough to bring back the part of her love's soul that she missed. This body she had was not capable of giving her the family she had wanted – of giving her the children she'd dreamed of having – and so she was limited to only sparing glances at the other humans, dreaming of the life she could have had.

She journeyed out of the land with the other ghosts, being forced to look at herself every morning in the mirror and wonder what had become of her. Was it possible to be as beautiful as she was and still have nothing she wanted? Of course it was. Rosalie was more unhappy than she had ever been. She missed her shallow life, her empty beauty, and the hope which she'd once felt.

She looked in her mirror time and time again, asking it who the fairest one in the land was, and the mirror continued to respond with her name. She prayed for a new answer, for a solution to her agony, but it still answered the same.

And eventually she accepted this, knowing that beauty was nowhere near magic. Even so, it was all she had now to rely on.

Without a family, without a home, she clung to her creator – to the phantoms who had always spoke the truth, and they began to raise her as their own. Even though she wondered where her happy ending had ventured, or if it had even been there to start with, she continued to move on with her shadow of a life. Her spirit began to grow less shallow and more impenetrable, until no one was able to reach her at all. She had grown into something her mother had never imagined: a rose seeming only to be made of thornes.

A/N: I have used a lot of references to Brothers Grimm fairy tales such as Snow White, Rose Red, Cinderella, and probably a lot more. I hope you enjoyed this story. Please let me know in a review if I should continue with this or leave it as a oneshot. Thanks for reading, as always.


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